Taking Your Fertilizer Dollars Further

For growers, fertilizer prices and commodity volatility have been ongoing concerns. If you’ve had conversations with farmers or their retail partners recently, you’ve likely heard these pressing questions:

• How much will my fertilizer cost?

• Will I get it in time?

• Should I cut inputs to save money or maintain them for better yields?

• Is there a more cost-effective way to get the nutrients I need?

  
  

These are valid concerns. While markets fluctuate, one thing remains constant—crops need fertility, and growers want to make the most of their fertilizer budget.

What’s Driving the Fertilizer Market Up

Several factors are driving up fertilizer costs, but supply chain challenges are a major culprit. Weather conditions in key U.S. fertilizer-producing regions, reduced imports and lower domestic production combined with ongoing shipping and logistical hurdles are making fertilizer more expensive to get to your farm.

As exciting as it is to watch commodity prices creep up, those high prices also lead to higher fertilizer prices. You need nutrients to make the yield that makes the money. So, the key is finding ways to make those nutrients count. Wasted nutrients are wasted money.

How Can Farmers Get the Most Out of Their Fertilizer

Over the years, the industry has gotten better at telling farmers what their plants need—and when they need it. While it isn't always possible to spoon-feed every acre, taking advantage of the various tools and technologies available can help you make your fertilizer applications more effective.

1. Soil testing can help growers identify areas of the field where fertilizer can be applied more economically.

2. Variable-rate technology allows producers to optimize fertilizer use, putting nutrients exactly where needed.

3. Splitting applications over the growing season may offer some flexibility to take advantage of lower prices in the future and ensure that plants have exactly what they need, right when they need it—limiting the amount lost.

4. Reducing nitrogen rates, focusing on the Maximum Return to Nitrogen (MRTN) rates to ensure profitability.

   
   

But all of these methods focus on applying the exact amounts of fertilizer a crop needs, with no consideration for the nutrients in the soil that are unavailable for plant uptake. Some research says that up to 98% of the nitrogen (N), 90% of phosphorus (P) and 98% of potassium (K) that are already in your soil cannot be accessed by the crop.

Healthy Soils Play a Role in Nutrient Availability

Healthy soils are crucial for growing any crop well, but they are vital for encouraging the efficient uptake of nutrients. There are three key properties of healthy soil: physical, chemical and biological.

• Physical: Healthy soils should have a good structure, with plenty of pore space, internal drainage and available water. There should be little to no compaction in healthy soils.

• Chemical: Healthy soils should have a pH of 6–7 for stable plant growth. Ideally, it should also have balanced macro and micronutrients.

• Biological: Healthy soils should have a fair amount of organic matter in varying stages and a vibrant microbial population to support the breakdown of that organic matter.

Biostimulants are tools that can help you improve the overall health of your soil and access those tied-up nutrients. While they have been around for years, helping growers chase efficient nutrient use, it is expected that biostimulants will be a $4 billion segment of the industry by 2025.

What are Biostimulants

A growing part of the ag industry, biostimulants are biological crop input additives that encourage plant processes and enhance the success of other crop inputs such as fertilizer. They can help crops manage stressors such as drought or extreme temperatures, supplement plant health and attributes or improve a plant's ability to take hold of nutrients in the soil. The opportunity to maximize fertilizer uptake is especially significant in a high-cost fertilizer market. Biostimulants aren't fertilizers, but they help your fertilizer work more efficiently.

How They Work

One way that biostimulants help improve nutrient uptake is by encouraging microbial activity in the soil. Microbes are any number of bacteria and other microscopic organisms in the soil that break down organic matter. As the microbes break down organic matter, they take the nutrients —such as NPK—and exchange them into a chemical form that the plant can easily access. Plant health improves with more nutrients, meaning more dense root systems, more robust growth, greater ability to fight stress and greater yield potential. It also means the potential to be more efficient with the fertilizer applied.

Why You Need Them

Some studies say that up to 80% of microbes in the soil are dormant. They aren’t getting fed and aerated due to lack of water, soil type, compaction, etc. Because they aren't doing the enzymatic activity of breaking down organic matter, the amount of plant-available nutrition in your soil becomes limited to the easily accessible fertilizer formulations you put down. By adding biostimulants to your crop input mix, you can improve your crop’s access to nutrients already in the soil, meaning the potential for less applied fertilizer and even a yield increase, thanks to the plant health benefits of the biostimulant as well. By applying a biostimulant to the seed or in the furrow, you can increase the activity in the soil adjacent to the seed and developing plant, giving your crop a head start on success.

Emergence and Early Growth

How a crop starts often determines how well the rest of the season will go. If a crop struggles early, it won't be at its best later in the season, when insect, disease and drought pressures occur. It also may not have the tools it needs to reach its highest yield potential. Consistent healthy emergence directly impacts yield, with uneven stands showing up to a 9% yield loss.

What factors can influence even emergence? They include:

• Soil temperature

• Planting depth

• Planting date

• Planting population

• Rotation and cover crop usage

  
  

With so many factors playing into your early success, it’s important to manage the variables you can control and take advantage where you can. Starter fertilizer and seed treatments can give your crop the early boost it needs, but adding a biostimulant to the input mix can give your crop the extra edge it needs to succeed.

Optimize Fertilizer Rates Without Sacrificing Yield

Agnition products use patented Microbial Catalyst technology to stimulate existing microbes in the soil by unlocking enzymes that drive more efficient nutrient utilization and yield. By using these products in a way that fits your farm, you can optimize your fertilizer rates while enjoying an impressive yield increase.

See the benefits of Microbial Catalyst on your own farm. We stand behind the results with our 2025 Agnition Performance Guarantee! Try now Risk-Free!